4 Ways Eye-Tracking Technology Will Change Our Lives

Eye-tracking technology in our favorite devices can make browsing and gaming more fun, and even keep us safe, but what are the hazards of wandering eyes?

Those who preordered Samsung's Galaxy S 4 smartphone will be getting more than just a 13 megapixel camera and the latest quad-core processor when the phone ships later this month. They'll be among the first consumers to own a gadget that can track eye movement.

For now that means software on smartphones will make use of front-facing cameras to pause a video when the user looks away from the screen or scroll through a web page based on the user's eye movements. But these implementations of eye-tracking tech are mere gimmicks compared with what the future of eye tracking will hold, including changes to the way we drive, play, read, and, of course, advertise.

Tobii Rex

Stockholm-based company Tobii plans to launch its Rex USB-connected eye-tracking device this fall. It sits in front of a computer screen and relies on an infrared-light-emitting microprojector and image sensor to track vision. Once the sensor has been calibrated to the user, the processing software calculates where the eye is looking to within the nearest millimeter.

The Rex will allow for eye-controlled scrolling in Internet Explorer, for example, and navigation of map applications in Windows 8. But video games might be a more compelling use case. The company built a demo for an eye-controlled version of Asteroids and is shopping its device to game developers.

Behind the Wheel

Carmakers, including General Motors and Toyota, have put money into research toward vision- and attention-monitoring systems in cars that would make use of eye-tracking tech to improve safety. If the car knows where a driver is looking—through the use of sensors and cameras—it could alert him or her to potential hazards outside the field of vision, or sound an alert if changes in eye movement occur, such as sagging eyelids, decreased blinking, or slowing of eyeball motion. It will probably take four or five years before these features show up on the dealer's lot.

Reading, Enhanced

German researchers working on software called Text 2.0 intend to use eye-tracking camera tech to automatically adjust a text page on the Web to display pop-up translations and meanings of foreign or difficult words, recognize skimming behavior and adjust the page to make keywords more prominent and common words fade out, and even measure what types of things people tend to skip over. Adept readers could learn to incorporate special motions into their reading styles to activate the software's features, but even first-time users could reap benefits from the software just by reading normally.

Smarter Ads

If there's a new technology for measuring online behavior, someone's going to find a way to use it to sell more highly targeted advertising. With eye tracking, the potential is obvious: If a Web page can load a video because you've stared at a certain spot long enough, it can certainly load up an ad too. Marketers have used vision heat mapping for years to determine what bores and interests consumers. One day the ads you look at will change dynamically based on where on a page you've glanced. (Though, surely, ad-blocking tools will emerge to evade this type of advertising, just as they have for other forms.)

The Challenges

Other obstacles stand in the way of more eye-tracking technology moving into the mainstream. Software would need to recognize the difference between a true distraction (looking away from a video to do or watch something else), and a mere eye movement—a yawn, perhaps—before it pauses videos appropriately.

And what about eyestrain? If staring intently at a spot on a screen brings about a certain result, what kind of focus would one need to exert in order to open a link? Similarly, if the infrared beam technology takes off, perhaps we'll learn about the side effects to prolonged infrared exposure. There has been some research into this area but not much.

What's clear is that while eye tracking may supplement our dominant user interface experience (mice, keyboards, track pads, and now touch screens), it won't be the only new way we interact with machines.

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